Hard shelters provide occupants with desirable insulation from the outside environment, but such protection comes with a price. Hard shelters are generally rigid, making transportation difficult, are expensive to manufacture, are heavy to transport, and are difficult to augment. In the field of transportable hard shelters for recreational purposes, there are generally three common types: self-propelled recreational vehicles (RVs); self-contained campers (slide-in/slide-out for use with pickup trucks); and towed trailers.
Government restrictions on the size of vehicles generally limits a vehicle's width to 8 feet or less, unless special permits are obtained. Moreover, practical limits associated with access roads and the like effectively limit the width of RVs, campers and trailers. Therefore, until recently enthusiasts were limited to hard shelters having a width no greater than 8 feet. As intimated above, however, the configuration necessary for travel on the roads is not mandated for times wherein the RV, camper or trailer is at rest. “Slide outs” have become popular options for many RVs and some campers. Slide outs take advantage of the fact that the width dimension can be increased when the RV or camper is at rest. Slide outs have rigid extension walls (upper, lower, front, rear and side) in addition to suitable operational hardware.
While slide outs advantageously increase the interior volume of the hard shelter, they do so at the expense of economy, simplicity and weight. For large Class A RVs, which can cost in excess of $100,000, economy, simplicity and weight considerations are minimal. However, where such considerations are important, slide outs may not be a viable option. Therefore, a need exists to create an interior volume enhancing extension that is simple, inexpensive when compared to rigid slide outs, and light in weight so that non-specialized vehicles can carry/tow them.